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Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System

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06/30/2009
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MCAS QUESTION OF THE DAY:
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GRADE 7
2005, SESSION ONE, READING SELECTION #1

Which animals are the smartest? Are horses smarter than dogs, and are dogs smarter than cats? Are monkeys smarter than all three? Scientists have long wondered how to measure an animal's intelligence. Read the article to see why determining animal intelligence is so difficult. Use information from the article to answer the questions that follow.

Are Dogs Dumb?
by Karen Hopkin

1      Chimps can use sign language to talk to their trainers. Monkeys can learn to count. A crow can figure out how to use a stick to get at that hard-to-reach grub. Chickens can learn to play checkers. Even worms can be taught to run mazes. So which animal is the smartest? You're probably thinking that chimps are smarter than chickens. And that crows are smarter than worms. And that you're smarter than all of them.
2      But where do those rankings come from? Okay, you probably are smarter than the average worm. But why do we assume that bigger beasts are smarter than smaller ones? Or that furry critters are brainier than slithering wrigglers that are coated in slime?
3      And how come we think dogs are so smart? Sure, a dog might be clever enough to fetch his leash when he wants to go out. But the same mutt might also bark at the vacuum cleaner and spend a whole hour chasing his own tail. Is Rover really any brighter than a hamster, a chicken, or that kid who's always eating Play-Doh? How can you measure an animal's brain power?
4      The hardest part is coming up with the right test. A dog can't sit down with a No. 2 pencil and take a multiple choice exam. So the test has to be something the dog can learn to do: select a block by nudging it with a nose or a paw, for example. The test also has to be something the dog wants to do: a dog might stare at that block all day without budging—until she figures out that there's a treat hidden underneath.
5      Norton Milgram and his co-workers at the University of Toronto at Scarborough use treats to give dogs a Canine IQ test. The dog is presented with a tray with a blue block on it; underneath the block is a treat. The animal moves the block and gets the treat. So far, so good. Now the test gets tricky. The dog is presented with the same tray, but this time it has both a blue block and a yellow coffee can lid (or white bowl or black square of cloth) on it; the treat is now under the yellow lid (or white bowl, etc.). The test: how long does it take for the dog to learn that the treat is always under the new item on the tray? The smarter the dog, the quicker she'll find the treat.
6      That seems simple enough, but things become more complicated when you try to compare different kinds of animals. Monkeys wipe the floor with dogs on this test. Dogs may have to try hundreds of times before they select the yellow lid nine out of ten times. Monkeys learn much more quickly to find the hidden treat. Does that mean monkeys are smarter than dogs?
7      Not necessarily. The test was originally designed for monkeys, and it gives them an unfair advantage: by nature monkeys are curious and like to check out new things. Dogs, on the other hand, tend to be wary about approaching new things. As Stephen Budiansky reports in his book The Truth about Dogs, one pooch was so scared of the yellow lid that he had to be excused from the study.
8      If the test is made more dog-friendly, on the other hand, canines do just fine. Instead of introducing a yellow lid, the treat is put under another blue block on the opposite side of the tray. Dogs learn as quickly as any monkey that the treat is always on the side opposite the first block they saw.
9      Even if you could find a test that was perfectly fair to all animals, in a way it's silly to ask whether one kind of animal is smarter than another. All animals have the ability to learn things that are important to them. Otherwise they wouldn't survive. A chicken doesn't need to be a chess champion to figure out where to get food or how to run from a predator. So a chicken is as smart as it needs to be to earn a living as a chicken.
10      If you still believe that dogs are much smarter than chickens, it's probably because dogs are good at learning the things we want them to learn: fetching the newspaper, for example. Try to convince a chicken to do that! The truth is, most dog tricks take advantage of dogs' built-in behavior patterns—things that dogs are born knowing how to do or learn easily. Chasing and retrieving are leftover hunting behaviors. For a dog, fetching the paper or a tennis ball is not a reflection of intelligence. It's basically a demonstration that dogs will be dogs.
11      Canines may not be the deepest thinkers in the world. But perhaps that's for the best. The life of a dog—sitting alone all day, waiting for everyone to come home—can be pretty boring. Super-smart animals would probably get totally stressed out, says Serpell. Look at it this way: if dogs were any smarter, they probably wouldn't choose to hang around with us.

Reprinted by permission of MUSE magazine, November/December 2002, Vol. 6, No. 9, © 2002 by Karen Hopkin.

2005, QUESTION 3 - Grade 7  
According to paragraph 7, how are monkeys and dogs different?
 
 		 
English Language Arts - Reading and Literature 

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Last Updated: June 30, 2009


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